"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken"

So, one of the things about me that is probably well-known by now is this: styling my hair does not interest me.

I’ve had, oh, maybe four hairstyles in my life:

The little-girl bob. This is how my mother got my hair cut, because it was all one length apart from the fringe, and she could totally do that herself. Which is why my fringe was always just that little bit wonky. The rest of my hair started out just above my chin and got as far down as my shoulders before being cut off again.

The “this doesn’t even have a name” long hair style. Which is to say, my hair was one length all over. This is what happened after I grew out my fringe. And it just kept getting longer, because I was lazy about arranging a haircut.

The “just cut it all off” short hair style. This is what happened when I eventually made that appointment. It went from being half-way down my back to being up above my ears. I looked like a page boy at first, but by progressively getting shorter and shorter styles, it started to look halfway decent sometimes.

The “I should really get my hair cut” short hair style. This is what happens now. My hair starts off as short as it can actually get cut using scissors, and grows until it’s in my eyes. At which point, I reluctantly head to the hairdressers, for another thrilling installment of….

“I’ll make it a girly cut, shall I?”

Seriously.

Sometimes I think I must have a sign on my head saying “for the love of Ceiling Cat, make this woman feminine!!”

People hear what they want to hear. This is a thing I have learned. It doesn’t matter if I tell them – as I did – that I don’t want to style my hair, that I just want to wash it and ignore it, that I don’t give a fuck about looking feminine, but I do care very much about it going in my eyes… All that this means is that they’ll nod along in that oh-so-understanding way, before saying, “well, why don’t I do you a pixie cut? It’s not very much work, you just need to blow dry it after you’ve washed it, maybe put in a bit of wax…”

My blood donor records now have a special note on them, asking whichever nurse I see to make sure I lie down for 5 minutes after I’ve finished donating, lest I do what I did the first time and collapse twice.

I was very well behaved this time round, and didn’t feel faint once. That came later, when I was in a bookshop, having convinced myself that I was fine this time. I think perhaps I destroyed my feminine credentials by immediately dropping everything I was holding and sitting down on the floor. In the fantasy section. Which wasn’t decorated in pink.